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Green Bean Salad with Greek Olives and Feta Cheese

I love this Green Bean Salad with Greek Olives and Feta Cheese. There are so many of my favorite flavors in this tasty salad and it's low-carb, gluten-free, South Beach Diet friendly, and perfect for Meatless Monday!

As I promised yesterday, I'm starting out the week with a tasty idea for Meatless Monday, but this favorite Green Bean Salad with Greek Olives and Feta Cheese could also be a lovely side dish for something cooked on the grill. I first made this salad in 2005 and took it to a barbecue at the house of my friends Mary and Ken, and I've been making it ever since. And although the original photos weren't horrible for this one, the new pics definitely show it off much better!

The original version of the salad had two options for a tasty dressing, but as I made the salad through the years the version I liked most evolved into one using a much simpler dressing that featured white balsamic vinegar (or white vinegar). That's the dressing I'm including with this post, but you can use that link above if you've enjoyed it with one of the earlier dressings. The only other thing I changed is to use a little more Feta cheese, because more Feta is always good, right?

I love, love, love the sweet white onions in this salad, but I wouldn't use regular white onion for a salad where the onion is raw. Sweet onions seem to be available any time of year now, but I realize that raw onion is something that some people don't find appealing, even if the onions are sweet. You can omit the onions, or use thinly sliced green onion if you have some onion-avoiders in the family. But if you like onion, the sweet onions (cut into slivers so they mimic the shape of the green beans) are amazing in this salad.

And if you're a faithful Meatless Monday fan or vegetarian, you can find more meatless main dishes or side dishes with the photo-index pages for Meatless Recipes or Vegan Recipes. And you also might like my Meatless Monday Pinterest Board, which has more than 15,000 meatless recipe ideas from food bloggers all around the web!

(Green Bean Salad with Greek Olives and Feta Cheese was first posted in 2005 and updated with better photos in 2008 and again in 2016, so you can tell this has been a well-loved recipe!)

Trim beans, cut into pieces, and steam for 5 minutes. Then immediately put beans into ice water to stop the cooking and drain well. While the beans drain crumble the Feta, slice the olives, and cut the onion into slives about the same thickness as the beans.

Whisk together the vinegar, olive oil, lemon juice, Dijon, dried oregano, greek seasoning, and a little pepper to make the dressing. Combine beans, olives, and onions and toss with desired amount of dressing, then gently fold in the Feta.

Serve right away or refrigerate. This will stay good in the fridge for a day or two, although I think it's best the day you make it! For a low-carb Meatless Monday dinner, I'd serve this with something like Low-Carb and Paleo Mediterranean Zucchini Noodles.

And just for fun, here's the photo from 2008, which was definitely not bad for those days!

Trim both ends of beans. (I trim them by loosely holding a handful of beans while standing them upright on the cutting board to line up ends of beans. Trim, then repeat with the other end.) Then cut beans into pieces about 2 inches long. Steam beans until barely tender-crisp, about 5 minutes, then quickly drain beans and plunge into cold water with ice cubes to stop cooking. Remove quickly from ice water and let beans drain very well in a colander.

While beans are draining, cut onions into strips slightly smaller than beans and cut olives in half. Crumble desired amount of Feta. Whisk together the white balsamic vinegar, olive oil, lemon juice, Dijon, dried oregano, Greek seasoning, and pepper to make the dressing.

Combine beans, olives, and onions in plastic or glass bowl, pour dressing over and stir a few times so all vegetables are well covered. Gently stir in Feta and serve.

(You can chill several hours to allow flavors to blend and then gently stir in the Feta when you serve the salad, but we skipped the chilling step this time and it was still fantastic.)

This will keep for a few days in the refrigerator, but I think it's best the day you make it.

This salad is a good choice for a low-carb diet plan or any phase of the South Beach Diet. South Beach would recommend a moderate amount of Feta cheese; other low-carb diet plans would permit more cheese.

I chose the South Beach Diet to manage my weight partly so I wouldn't have to count calories, carbs, points, or fat grams, but if you want nutritional information for a recipe, I recommend entering the recipe into Calorie Count, which will calculate it for you. Or if you're a member of Yummly, you can use the Yum button on my site to save the recipe and see the nutritional information there.

More Salads with Green Beans:

(Recipes from other blogs may not always be low-carb or South Beach Diet friendly; check ingredients.)

Posts may include links to my affiliate account at Amazon.com, and this blog earns a few cents on the dollar if readers purchase the items I recommend, so thanks for supporting my blog when you shop at Amazon!

Padma, I can only answer for myself, but I haven't had that problem. In fact when I'm sticking most carefully to the diet, I have more energy. You might need to be sure you're having a snack every 2-3 hours, and maybe check with your doctor. Do take care of yourself!

I like this salad, particularly addition of the feta and the olives. Salty, but then the beans are crunchy.. yum. Well done. And I'm very amused that Utah gets a holiday for when the Mormons arrived! It makes total sense, what a fun way of keeping in touch with regional history.

Thanks Shirley; I love this salad. And another reader wrote to say she couldn't find white balsamic vinegar so I am going to add an Amazon link for it. It is so great for dishes where you don't want the dark color.

I'm so happy you're taking the time to comment on Kalyn's Kitchen! I love hearing from people who stop by, especially if you're sharing feedback or asking questions about a recipe I've posted here.

I've recently changed my comment settings so people can comment without signing in, but you will need to check the box to show you're a live person, and comments on older posts won't show up until I publish them. Thanks for understanding!

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